This handout accompanies a presentation of the same name by Emma Carew Grovum, assistant managing editor of The Daily Beast, for NewsTrain in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2016. It offers tips for journalists on how to report using social media, including verification of user-generated content. NewsTrain is a training initiative of Associated Press Media Editors (APME). More info: http://bit.ly/NewsTrain
Using Social Media as Powerful Reporting Tools - Emma Carew Grovum - Murfreesboro, TN - Sept. 30-Oct. 1, 2016
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Using social media as powerful reporting
tools
Emma Carew Grovum | @emmacarew | ecg@thedailybeast.com
Using social media to gather news
SocialMediaReporter.org. A 2016 guide to social media reporting by BBC
journalist Cordelia Hebblethwaite (@CordeliaHeb). Includes organizing, locating,
verifying, searching and trending.
A rundown of some of reported.ly’s favorite tools. After covering global
news stories via social media for two years, reported.ly’s Editor-in-Chief Andy
Carvin (@acarvin) offers this list of tools for social newsgathering on Aug. 31, the
day reported.ly shut down: bit.ly/reportedlytools
The one word journalists should add to Twitter searches that you
probably haven’t considered. Me, my and I. By NYT’s Daniel Victor
(@bydanielvictor): bit.ly/victorsearch
How the Los Angeles Times located students from ’06 immigration
protests: http://bit.ly/findprotesters
Tools for social newsgathering
Nuzzel: Get alerts. nuzzel.com
Crowdtangle: A paid app. crowdtangle.com
Tweetdeck: tweetdeck.twitter.com
If This, Then That: ifttt.com
Facebook Search: graph.tips
LinkedIn Advanced Search:
Knight Lab twXplorer: twxplorer.knightlab.com/
Twitter Advanced Search: twitter.com/search-advanced
Twitter search operators: bit.ly/twsearchtrix
Google Forms: Create an online survey for crowdsourcing. bit.ly/howtogform
Ask: Free, open-source, embeddable forms for crowdsourcing text, photo, video,
audio. Created by The Coral Project: blog.coralproject.net/product-ask/
Who Tweeted It First: ctrlq.org/first/
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Using Reddit
Reddit for Journalists: your newest super-source. By BBC technology
reporter Dave Lee (@DaveLeeBBC): bit.ly/redditjournalists
Using Snapchat
Here’s how to use Snapchat (and how not to use Snapchat). “It’s not
Twitter, it’s not Instagram.” says CNN journalist Masuma Ahuja. “I think of it as
building a community there. They treat us as their weird friend who talks about
politics.” From Poynter.org: bit.ly/snapchatdodont
Snapchat: a new mobile challenge for storytelling. How The New York
Times is using Snapchat: bit.ly/nytsnapchat
Vox.com is Snapchat's newest Discover publisher. Vox.com has HOW
MANY people devoted to Snapchat? bit.ly/voxsnapchat
Using voicemail
WYNC’s Note to Self sent 300,000 texts to 15,000 people; here’s how
they did it and what they learned. From NiemanLab.org: bit.ly/wynctexts
How CNN and Washington Post are using voicemail to connect with
their audiences. A podcast by Soundcloud: bit.ly/newsvoicemail
For its new personal finance podcast, FiveThirtyEight set up
voicemail to hear from listeners: bit.ly/538voicemail
Verifying information on social media
VerificationJunkie.com. A directory of tools for verifying the validity of
eyewitness reports and user-generated content. Managed by Josh Stearns
(@jcstearns).
Guide to Crowdsourcing. By the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at the
Columbia Journalism School: towcenter.org/research/guide-to-crowdsourcing/
VerificationHandbook.com. A guide to “verifying digital content for
emergency coverage.” Edited by Craig Silverman.
Online News Association’s Social Newsgathering Ethics Code:
toolkit.journalists.org/social-newsgathering
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FirstDraftNews.com. “Your guide to navigating eyewitness media, from
discovery to verification” Includes a visual verification guide for photos:
bit.ly/verifyphotos and how to geolocate tweets: bit.ly/geolocatetweets
Reverse image searches: images.google.com and tineye.com
View the exif data on photos: regex.info/exif.cgi
Verifying images: why seeing is not always believing. By Storyful:
bit.ly/verifyingimages
Snopes.com. Check for hoaxes. snopes.com
Avoiding and correcting mistakes
Conflicting reports of Giffords’ death were understandable, but not
excusable. Excellent Poynter write-up after NPR mistakenly reported
Congressman Gabrielle Giffords was dead in a 2011 mass shooting. It analyzes
what went wrong and why these mistakes will happen again:
bit.ly/poyntergiffords